Kelly Believes DeSantis Won Trucker Carlson’s Iowa Forum

(DailyVantage.com) – Former FOX News anchor and current podcast host Megyn Kelly says that she believes Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida won the 2024 Republican presidential candidate forum hosted by Tucker Carlson. “I thought that was the best I’ve seen Ron DeSantis. It was a DeSantis win.”

The candidates at the Family Leadership Summit also included former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.

Describing DeSantis as “nerdy”, Kelly said that if he wanted to regain the trajectory and momentum that he had earlier, he would need to face adversarial media interviews as his campaign currently starts to stagnate.

Of the other candidates, she thought Hutchinson had no chance and that, while likable and competent, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley did not have the polling to successfully pull ahead and did not gain anything from the forum. While Ramaswamy has recently surged, Kelly thought that he was not inspirational enough.

Ahead of the Republican primary debates hosted by the Republican National Committee, only a few of the candidates have started to qualify for debates based on the thresholds for polling numbers and donations.

Current aggregate polling from FiveThirtyEight shows that Trump has about a 30-point advantage over DeSantis. Furthermore, an Emerson poll indicates that, in a general election matchup, it would be a competitive race between President Joe Biden and Trump—within 1 percent of the popular vote when undecided voters aren’t forced to make a pick. Trump has the potential to win key states like Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona if he plays his cards right.

While the race for the 2024 Republican nomination is still ongoing, it will take a lot of work from the DeSantis camp if they wish to catch up to former President Trump. With strong support in the polls and financial backing, DeSantis will need to build momentum if he wishes to show himself as a viable option for the general election.